Mark Thompson defends BBC's failed Digital Media Initiative

Yesterday TV Rage told you about the BBC's failed Digital Media Initiative (DMI). Parliament wants answers from the broadcaster on what changed in two years, as it was told that the project was on the path to success in 2011, but now it has to be scrapped after costing taxpayers nearly $150 million.

The reason that Parliament knew the initiative was on the path to success in 2011 was because Mark Thompson, the former BBC director general, informed it that was the case.

"The thing that really shook me is we were told there were bits of this system that were working, you were using and running programs with them, and that wasn't true," said committee chair Margaret Hodge. "The evidence given to us was not correct at that time, and had you given us the correct evidence, we might have come to a very different view to the one we came to when we looked at this."

Now Thompson, who has moved on and is the CEO of the New York Times Company, is defending himself and his earlier comments.

He told The Guardian that his 2011 testimony was given "honestly and in good faith," adding that, "I did so on the basis of information provided to me at the time by the BBC executives responsible for delivering the project."

Parliament has formally recalled Thompson to appear at a July hearing to further explain his comments.

The project was officially scrapped last month. It was being designed to make all production and archive operations at the BBC fully digital.

An additional report by the Guardian says that three years ago managers at the BBC were made aware of problems with the DMI.